Lively, who starred in and produced the 2024 Colleen Hoover book adaptation, accused Baldoni, who played her romantic interest and directed the film, of sexual harassment and waging an online smear campaign against her. Baldoni has staunchly denied all allegations. Since then, the two have been locked in a he-said\/she-said battle of public opinion, which played out in the press and on social media.<\/p>\n
Now, the stars have called a draw. The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.<\/p>\n
Attorneys for Lively and Baldoni issued a joint statement on Monday.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe end product \u2014 the movie It Ends With Us \u2014 is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life,\u201d Bryan Freedman, Ellyn Garofalo, Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson said in a statement. \u201cRaising awareness, and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors \u2014 and all survivors \u2014 is a goal that we stand behind.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lively attended the 2026 Met Gala in New York City on Monday night<\/a>, arriving on the red carpet just hours after the settlement was announced.<\/p>\n Blake Lively attends the 2026 Met Gala in New York City on Monday.<\/p>\n (Taylor Hill via Getty Images)<\/p>\n In April, a judge threw out 10 of Lively\u2019s 13 claims against Baldoni, allowing only breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation to move forward. The court ruled that Lively was working as an independent contractor, meaning she could not pursue a sexual harassment claim under federal employment law.<\/p>\n Lively and Baldoni attempted to reach a settlement in February<\/a> but failed to do so.<\/p>\n It Ends With Us hit theaters in August 2024. It centers on Lily Bloom (Lively), a florist who enters into a relationship with a surgeon, Ryle Kincaid (Baldoni), only for the whirlwind romance to sour when Ryle becomes physically abusive.<\/p>\n Before the film\u2019s release, Lively faced public scrutiny for her approach to promoting it, which highlighted the film\u2019s lighter elements. Around the same time, people noticed that Lively and Baldoni did not appear together at promotional events \u2014 including at the film\u2019s premiere, where they did not take photos together \u2014 fueling speculation of a rift between the costars.<\/p>\n That rift was confirmed when, in December 2024, the Gossip Girl alum filed a complaint against Baldoni and went public with it in a New York Times article<\/a>. Later that month, she filed a lawsuit in New York against Baldoni and his company, Wayfarer Studios. Baldoni, a director and actor best known for his work on the CW\u2019s Jane the Virgin as well as his podcast Man Enough<\/a>, denied the allegations, arguing that negative press about Lively \u2014 which she said stemmed from Baldoni\u2019s smear campaign \u2014 was organic. He also alleged that Lively attempted to use her star power to exert control over It Ends With Us.<\/p>\n Baldoni sued the New York Times for defamation, and in January 2025 filed a civil suit against Lively, her husband, Ryan Reynolds, and their public relations team. Both lawsuits were later dismissed.<\/p>\n The fallout from the case was swift. Baldoni was dropped by his agency WME<\/a>, where Lively and Reynolds are also represented, and his Voices of Solidarity Award<\/a> from the nonprofit the Vital Voices Global Partnership, which supports women in leadership roles, was rescinded.<\/p>\n In the immediate aftermath of the lawsuit, Lively received praise from many stars for speaking out about sexual harassment.\u00a0However, as the weeks went on, and more information about the case was released, public opinion became<\/a> more<\/a> divided<\/a>.<\/p>\n The case, which has drawn considerable attention over the last year and a half, has also drawn in celebrities like Taylor Swift<\/a>, a friend of Lively\u2019s whose text messages with the actor were revealed in court documents. Even the Marvel character Deadpool became linked to the case when Baldoni alleged that Deadpool star Reynolds mockingly based the character Nicepool<\/a> \u2014 a performative male feminist who is killed by Lively\u2019s character Lady Deadpool \u2014 on him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni reached its end on Monday. The former It Ends…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":775020,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[45511,185,171,34615,20185,103367,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-775019","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-blake-lively","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-justin-baldoni","12":"tag-sexual-harassment","13":"tag-smear-campaign","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116522319660695143","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=775019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/775019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=775019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=775019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=775019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Blake](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/02e3ba6a-746e-4cde-876e-ae8fd199a884.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\n